If so, interested to hear thoughts on the various changes that have been made.
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If so, interested to hear thoughts on the various changes that have been made.
Yes, the changes are featured on the centre pages of the Trotguide as well. On first glance I think they are very appropriate "austerity" measures for the situation at hand but will have to read more thoroughly still for a final opinion
Got mine , read it and binned it ! Glad to see the premium sale gone, I was always puzzled how some horses made it into the premium sale with such poor pedigrees !
I was never so much concerned about the individual pedigrees aspect of it Rick, as for mine they all tended to look pretty good to very good to at times exceptional on paper, in fact more often than not I think they were selected with their 'paper appeal' in mind first and foremost. As such, in the flesh it was sometimes another story entirely.
I have been repeatedly more bemused by the conformation of some of the yearlings that were 'selected'. It has been and always was somewhat political (some breeders would get to the point of stomping their feet and throwing a hissy fit ala a 2yo child if their much adored colt or filly was not selected), it was awfully subjective and overall not a particularly good outcome. I'm glad to hear they've scrapped it. Good riddance.
I have to say that I was a believer in the idea...even though I had previously watched the attempt at & subsequent scrapping of an effectively parallel thought process to the APG Premium Sale, which was named 'The Diamond Session', one carried out for 1 year by the Standardbred Horse Sales Company at Harrsiburg some years earlier. That was conducted by no less than Murray Brown, a man who has inspected more yearlings than I've taken breaths & has forgotten more about horses than most would ever hope to learn. If they couldn't make it work with that sort of firepower then no chance it was going to fly here.
Politics and conformation and pedigrees and all aside, there is also a significant amount to be said for the more in demand lots remaining in & being sold throughout the catalogue througout the day. The 'buzz' that you hear many auction people talk about is much more easily attained and maintained, the overall sale seems to remain much more upbeat, as opposed to that which is perceived to be the best being skimmed off, leaving the rest to go under the hammer.
I also think returning to one sale, with the "buzz" lots spread through is preferable and should hopefully produce a better over all result. Inspections for entry are a somewhat controversial topic but certainly some of the lots in the ordinary sale have had such significant conformation faults that they can only be described as a waste of everyones time to be there. Sales are certainly buyer beware but I do think its time that the "industry" in a sale such as the APG "protected" novice buyers, who we can ill afford to loose, by not offering yearlings with significant conformation flaws at this type of public sale.
G'day Dot,
I don't think we have any need to extend the vacuos Nanny State approach of Federal Labor...into the realms of Standardbred Yearling Sales. Trainers are there to advise for starters, are they not?
Some of the lots offered in the last couple of editions of the Premium in Sydney were for mine an embarrassment insofar as they'd been widely touted as having undergone a selection process that was subsequently shown to have been little more than a charade in terms of their actual conformation having ever really counting for anything. Instead the appeal of their on-paper pedigrees almost without fail carried the day.
The flipside of that of course was those who wandering around picking out faults that whilst in most cases were definitely present were also never in a million years going to be an issue as far as future racing soundness was concerned.
There's a pretty ridiculous ideal in some people's heads, one to which it is a stone cold fact that 98%+ of yearlings simply do not conform.
You can find fault in virtually any horse that you care to inspect if you look at them closely enough for long enough...and furthermore, for the purposes of Harness Racing it is often an ideal which has very little in common with whether or not a horse can withstand the basic rigours of training & racing.
There are certain, for want of a better word, 'endemic' faults in many successful Standardbred sirelines (bench knees, toe out in front etc) and there are certain 'entrenched' faults in nevertheless successful maternal families that are perhaps much more of a cause for concern if they're found not to be present than if they are.
Homework.
VVV I said for "novice buyers", that means those that the very heavy promotion of the sale on for example sky racing radio may have enticed to attend- as it is intended to do-no point on spending on advertising on the radio for those in the industry, we have other avenues to advise us when its on. Has it occured to you that these people may purchase first, and find a trainer second? Would you prefer that these people can bid with confidence about the quality of the stock on offer or rather have a trainer tell them a short time later " it's F***** mate, never going to make it"?
I wasn't talking about ideal conformation rather an exceptable standard with regard to defects, and yes there is a degree of subjectivity about it. Bench Knees with cannon bone offset but perpendicular to the ground is different to bench knees where the cannon bone exits the knee at angle, and different again to when the cannon bone exits the knee at an angle and is rotated. And then there are bench knees where the knee is ok and its just the cannon bone is offset and those where the carpal bones aren't aligned properly which leads to the offset cannon bone. All of these have a different prognosis with regard to future use.
As Vets have a grading system in place these days for limb defects then in my opinion we should exclude horses that exhibit defects that exceed the minimums from a "showcase" sale such as the APG to encourage buyer confidence as regardless of the buyers experience level we have precious few real buyers as it is.
Well Dot, for me, that's a whole lot like the ridiculous Change Of Tactics rule...one which to a significant degree absolves a lot of Punters as far as them having to use their brains where doing the Form is concerned.
Similarly, in this instance... yearling sales, just how far down the line do you wish to kick responsibility for one's own actions? Just how spoon-fed must people become before the forelock tugging and gnashing of teeth and obfuscation finally ceases? Free will brother, we were all born with it.